


Red

by ElvaDeath



Series: The World of Asano Gakushuu [9]
Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Asano Gakuhou's A+ Parenting, Blood, Dissociation, Gakushuu is a little broken, Gakushuu-centric, How Do I Tag This, I Don't Even Know, Mentions of Akabane but he's not actually there, Murder, messing with time, ok so basically no one is there apart from Gakushuu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:15:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24002701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElvaDeath/pseuds/ElvaDeath
Summary: Gakushuu has had enough. He doesn't think he meant to do it. One second he's in his room, the next he's running halfway across the country so he isn't arrested for killing his own father.But the red is catching up to him, and he can't remember how to stop it.- E.D.
Series: The World of Asano Gakushuu [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657669
Comments: 7
Kudos: 76





	Red

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I'll get around to the magical Gakushuu thing soon! I just got in the mood to write this, and it just sort of came out in a big heap of messy time and confusion. I think by the end you'll understand what my brain is like.
> 
> Ideas, conversation, questions, requests for more (if this one chapter doesn't spook you too much), they are all very very very much appreciated. Quarantine is a little less dull when I read your comments!
> 
> Enjoy!  
> \- E.D.

Gakushuu gasps, suddenly and horribly aware of the blood.

He did this, he thinks, staring at the mass of red. He slashed the knife across his father’s neck, and watched him bleed out without moving to help.

How can one person make this much blood? It’s too much, pouring from the man in a stream, still going even when his eyes are dull and his twitches have stopped. Faintly, he registers his hands are shaking, but his mind is white noise and he can’t focus on anything.

So much red. Their housekeeper would say it is a pain to clean, like she did when he handed her his uniform, splashed with the blood of his foreign friends. He had hated his father then, hearing the screams and moans. Now he thinks he hates himself.

Time is passing by. He needs to move. She will come in the morning, see what he has done, and he will be locked away forever. That can’t happen. Robotically, he moves into the bathroom, water flushing the red down the drain. So much red. He can feel it on his hands, on his face, in his mouth, sticky and wet and red red red red red red red red-

He blinks and he is holding a lighter to the bedsheets in the garden, watching the orange lick up the red in growing bursts, smoke stinging his eyes and his nose. When did he get here? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care.

He blinks and he is writing out a note, gloves on his hands, mimicking his father’s handwriting. This part is easy - he doesn’t know how many times he’s faked notes from his father to get away with things. Every time he has been caught. Every time he has sat in the garden, a collar around his throat, waiting in the cold for his father to let him back in. The collar was red too, like a line of blood across his neck, like the slash across his father’s.

He blinks and he is dragging the body in a sheet to the car. He’s only fifteen, but he can drive. Just in case something happens, his father had once said. Gakushuu is relatively sure his father wasn’t thinking of this situation.

He did it for love, he thinks as he sets the note on the counter. That’s statistically the first thing people say when they confess. Revenge, anger, a seeping coldness that tightens around his heart until he can’t breathe - they don’t matter, because he did it for love.

The engine starts.

Love for his friends? Yes, he could say so. His father won’t brainwash them again, won’t punish him by hurting them. They won’t be sprawled across the office floor, red and blue and purple painting the air in pained breaths. So much red. He doesn’t think he can get the colour out of his head.

Buildings slip past him, people and lights and sounds blurring into a blank haze.

Love for his school? In a way, he supposes. His father had a murderous octopus teaching a class - he was in no way suitable to look after children. Look what he did to Gakushuu, after all. He shouldn’t have been surprised when he found the documents from the government in his father’s desk.

When did he find them? Before he burnt the bedsheets? After he wrapped up the body? He can’t remember.

He’s started referring to his father in past tense. He doesn’t think he cares. His father has been dead in his mind for a long time.

Love for his father? Not that anyone would believe him, but yes. His father has been a walking corpse for as long as Gakushuu can remember. No living person would threaten to fight their son in court after hitting them. No living, breathing, loving person would happily lock their son in their room until he finished every single test paper that had ever been made in a subject, simply because he missed a mark in the last one.

He has done a favour for his father. He’s sent him to a place where he can meet up with that boy who seemed more a son to him than his real one. He’s righting a wrong, this way. He loves his father, somewhere in his dull stone heart, and so he’s helping him move on.

Isn’t this what his father had wanted? For Gakushuu to destroy him utterly and completely? Why else would he train Gakushuu in mind and body, harden his heart and teach him what it means to be red? So much red. It’s everywhere, over his hands, over the floor, over his father’s shocked face.

He blinks and he’s covering the body in hydrofluoric acid, somewhere out of town, a pit dug into the ground. His hands ache, and his fuzzy eyes land on a shovel, red over the handle from his raw skin. Did he dig this? Where did he get the chemical from? Where is he? How long has he drifted for?

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t, at all, because he didn’t have to deal with the pain of it.

Palms stinging, he picks up the shovel again and falls back into the warm waters of his mind.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

God, he looks dreadful. Pale skin, shaking hands, and dark eyebags. He remembers girls giggling as he passes them in corridors, whispering about his perfect face. Distantly, he gets the unsettling feeling that he should be disappointed, or at least a little sad that he isn’t so pretty anymore. Instead, he feels relieved. His heart is seeping out onto his skin, and he finally looks how he feels.

The weight of the murder hasn’t fully crashed down on him yet, so he just splashes his face in the sink and walks out. Public bathroom, somewhere in a park, by the looks of it. He wonders where the car is, then reasons that he would have gotten rid of it. When they get suspicious and start looking, they will try to find the car first. Unfortunately, this now leaves him to travel on foot, but he’s sociable enough to wheedle a ride from someone.

The old woman who gives him a lift coos at his charming smile, waffling on about how polite and smart he is. He tries to focus, to push back the waves coaxing him away, but she’s far too boring to pay attention to for long.

He blinks and he’s in a crappy diner, chips in front of him. His father would be disappointed - never once has he let his meals be anything but healthy, even in school. The cooks would prepare a specially designed plate every day, and his friends would whine about favouritism. Gakushuu shoves a chip into his mouth and stifles the gasp of pleasure. If this is what his friends ate, every day, he has no idea why they were complaining.

He pays for the meal, and asks the waiter for the date. He tells him, eyebrows furrowed, and Gakushuu tries to contain his confusion as he realises it’s been two days. Where has he been? Has anyone seen him? Was he careful enough?

He needs a plan. He can’t run forever, and his father had too many ties to the governments over the world for him to just leave. Maybe he should disguise himself, use his money to rent a room far away, and wait it all out. They won’t search for him forever. He simply needs to get enough money to stay out of the way, and then they’ll stop looking for him. After that… a new identity, a new face, a new home, a new job, and a new life. Maybe he’ll get a cat.

First, though, he needs to keep moving. As he leaves the diner, he checks street signs and tries to work out where he is. He’s not far enough from his hometown, he realises with a clenched jaw. They won’t take long to find him if he stays here. He’ll be hunted down, caught with no explanations as to where his father is, and they’ll lock him up. He can almost feel the collar around his throat, the eyes of his father boring into him, an icy hand on his wrist-

Cold, dead eyes. A shocked expression. Red. So much red.

He blinks and he’s beside a road, fields stretching away from him for miles. His knees sting and his lungs burn and he has no idea where he is, or how he got here. Struggling to his feet, he feels something in his pocket and pulls out a bottle of hair dye and a box of coloured contacts. That’s useful. His pocket with his money in doesn’t feel any lighter, which is worrying. Did he steal these?

Did it matter? He’s already murdered his own father in cold blood.

Cold eyes, stone heart. Get up. Keep moving. He can’t stop now, not when going back would mean facing punishment. For the first time in his life, he has the chance to not suffer horribly from a mistake.

Was it a mistake? Should he have killed him?

Yes, yes, and either way it doesn’t matter because those piercing violet eyes are dull and Gakushuu doesn’t have to worry about him anymore. He thinks that everyone must know by now, his face splashed over the news with question marks dotting every sentence. He wonders what his friends must think. He wonders what Akabane must think, with his penchant for violence and revenge.

Second place, prince of the school, killing someone before him. He wonders if he should have killed the octopus teacher instead. Save the world and all that. Surely that would have pissed Akabane off more than just killing the Chairman.

Then he remembers that his heart is stone and his mind is black and he really doesn’t give a shit about anyone else. If he did, he might have left his father alive so that the housekeeper would keep getting paid. She has a family, after all. Two little children to support. Now she’ll be struggling to feed them, struggling to find work since her former employer has disappeared mysteriously.

Night falls. He wonders what day it is. The fields around him still stretch out in every direction, and he really needs to find shelter soon or risk sleeping in the open. Although, with ice in his smile and his veins, he isn’t sure if he would feel it. White noise and waves are filling his head again, tugging his tired mind into the blank abyss. He should sleep. Not here, though, he needs to keep moving.

With that last thought, he slips under.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Red. Red hair. Red hair? Akabane, probably. Why is Akabane here? He’s not. He shouldn’t be, at least. Unless they’ve found him and he’s going to get locked up forever. He blinks, rubbing his eyes, and the red hair comes into focus properly, violet eyes shimmering beneath it. His own face stares back at him, confusion across his features as he eyes the red mop of hair on his head. Not Akabane.

He’s in a bathroom, he realises, somewhere new and strange and he has no idea how he got here. The contacts are in his hands, and he carefully slips them in. Gold. What is wrong with him? If he smirks just like… that, he’s practically a carbon copy of Akabane. Why did his half-conscious mind think this was a good idea?

Actually… now he thinks about it, it’s perfect. He’s a runaway. He can’t be a polite young man who people will worry about. He needs to be dangerous, so people will leave him alone and won’t ask questions. He needs to act like he knows what he’s doing, where he’s going, even if he blinks and he’s miles away from where he last remembers.

Wearing the face of the most irritating person he knows may help him behave like that.

Okay. He breathes in, and sticks the smirk on his face again, a shiver running down his spine at his reflection. It’s creepy, but he pushes the unease aside and summons up the manic playfulness. Ruffle up his hair, mess up his clothing, and he almost looks the part. Almost. That glint is missing, the one that told him Akabane was just playing.

Gakushuu doesn’t have that, because he’s never just playing. He doesn’t do it for the shits and giggles. If he’s threatening something, or he’s acting intimidating, it’s because he intends to hurt whoever is in his way. His father didn’t take him seriously enough, didn’t understand that all of his threats weren’t just that. Now he’s pumped out all of his red and won’t ever underestimate Gakushuu again.

He turns, leaving the bottle beside the sink along with the red streaking down. God, there’s so much red. It follows him like a hellhound, snapping at his heels and promising revenge. Red eyes. Red blood. Red hair. Red cars, passing an inch by his face, and he jumps back. The driver yells at him. He opens his mouth and yells back, discomfort flooding him at behaving so rashly.

But it works. The driver just throws up a middle finger and carries on, and everyone around him suddenly slides away. They watch him, quickly looking away when he glances at them, and he feels the rush of power in his blood. Is this what Akabane feels all of the time? Is this what his father felt? No wonder he kept pushing, if Gakushuu’s scared flinches made him feel this good.

No. That’s wrong, he wasn’t scared. He wasn’t scared of his father at all, because his father’s red is on his hands and is dripping onto the floor, and Gakushuu did that.

He blinks and he’s standing by a cliff edge. Stepping back, he eyes the stormy sea with trepidation. When did he get here? What was his body planning to do? Jump?

He gets his answer in the form of flashing torches and police sirens behind him. He turns, taking in the police cars and guns, pointed at him, the crackling yells that he doesn’t understand.

Drop the weapon? He doesn’t have a weapon. Then he looks down and sees the gun in his hand, red dripping down the barrel, red sticky and wet on his arms and in his hair and on his face. He blinks, but it doesn’t go away, and he isn’t far away from everything. There’s so much yelling, and he can feel the cold spray of water behind him, and wonders if it’ll feel the same as the water in his mind.

Drop the weapon? He can’t. It’s tight in his hands as they approach, creeping steps making the cold stone on his heart clench painfully. He thought he was safe. He had red hair and golden eyes and no one questioned him. When did he get the gun? He doesn’t know. He thinks he doesn’t care, but then he sees the guns pointed at him and he decides he does care.

Drop it. Please.

His fingers don’t budge.

He can’t shoot a gun, he needs to drop it.

Can’t he? Then where is the red from? Who’s red is it?

Not red, it’s blood. Blood, not red.

Does that matter now?

Drop it. Drop the weapon.

Last chance.

Drop it. Drop it, please, just drop it. Drop it drop it drop it drop it dropitdropitdropitdropitdropitpleasejustdropit-

He blinks, and there’s red on his chest. The gun shakes in his grip, pointed at himself, and he swears he can hear someone laughing. Was that a gunshot? He doesn’t know. He didn’t shoot the gun, doesn’t know how to shoot a gun. Did he? He blinked, didn’t he? Was that him?

The world tilts. He can’t feel anything. Why can’t he feel anything? He wants his mother, her soft brown eyes and beautiful long hair and he wants her to kiss him and tell him he’s ok. Except she’s not here, she left ages ago. She left him to the red and the violet. She watched when the knife slashed across his father’s throat and she screamed at him to stop. Did she? No, she was gone before that. Did he kill her? Did she die before or after that night in the garden, red across his neck and blue in his fingers?

He can’t remember, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t care. Does he?

There’s water in his hair, on his skin. Or is it red? Blood. No, no, the blood isn’t on him, it’s on his father. Violet eyes and icy hands, wrapping around his wrist. Akabane is laughing. He sees him above him, pale and terrified, but still laughing. Or is it him? He can’t remember. He doesn’t know.

All he knows is red red red red red red-

Black.

**Author's Note:**

> Ookayyy, no clue what that ending was but you can interpret what you like from it. Hated the cliche 'laughing while dying' thing, but I hate having to change what I write more, so it's staying.
> 
> Question time!
> 
> Which character is your favourite in Assassination Classroom and why?
> 
> I think mine is pretty obvious, from my previous works. Can you guess it? Yup, Gakushuu, wow, what a surprise. I love the characters who are evil but not really. Like, the all-powerful vibes are awesome, but the potential for angst? Even better.


End file.
